


Too Long A Frost

by Karracaz, MaryStacy



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Dusty Jones, Gen, L.L. MacLeod, Llwellyn S. Macleod, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek: TOS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 11:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karracaz/pseuds/Karracaz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryStacy/pseuds/MaryStacy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story by L.L. McLeod.  The death...and rebirth... of Spock cause repercussions for Sarek and Amanda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Long A Frost

**Author's Note:**

> In Memory
> 
> "Dusty Jones, writer, editor of LIAPITA (Logic is a Pain in the Ass) and True Vulcan Confessions. Affectionately known as Commodore Hotel to the August Party set, and one of the original co-chairs of the August Party. Worked alongside Mary Stacy and Mark Lenard Sarek at cons for juvenile diabetes. Died in 2003 from cancer.'[1]  
> Author of Sellout (a Krepe Paper) which appeared in True Vulcan Confessions  
> Under the name of L.L. MacLeod she wrote Little White Lies, Too Long A Frost and A Vulcan Tea Party which appeared in True Vulcan Confessions and LIAPITA

Too Long a Frost

By Dusty Jones (aka L.L. McLeod) taken from True Vulcan Confessions (mundots2291)

ONE

It was quiet. At Seleya plateau, there had been farewells and promises to write recommendations and to speak with high Federation officials. Kirk and his crew had left with a hastily filed Vulcan registration and Vulcan provisions and with the Genesis information and a prisoner intact. Perhaps his intervention would not be needed after all. And alone in the house it was quiet.

The mourners had gone. There was no one to mourn any longer. His son was alive. And yet, there was no son to accompany him back to ShiKahr; the wavering, clouded mind needed the sort of care that only an expert in the turnings of the mind could provide. There could be no promises, but it was assumed that one day his son could come home.

The night was chill, but Sarek opened the windows anyway. The wind off the desert came in and bit at him until he turned his face away to look at the clock. The one on the shelf was Terran in make and of no use to him. It was there only as a decoration, to serve no function but to enhance the room and provide a topic for conversation if one were at a loss for words. It was beautifully made and ran with precision, but here on Vulcan, its use was limited and its information of little value. It had been a present from Amanda.

Amanda. 

He had not told her. She knew nothing of what was happening and would not know until he called. He had not wanted to disturb her, to bring her news of Spock’s death and then prolong the grief with the explanation of what he had had to do to bring the body back. Then, when that which was necessary to restore him was accomplished, there had been no time for her to get back even if he had been able to invade her work.

There had always been an understanding between them never to interrupt the other during important proceedings. In addition, it had always been difficult for Amanda to work to par under conditions of stress as severe as the news of her son’s death would have engendered. Informing her before it was necessary would have been illogical.

The wind was too cold, too fierce now, and as Sarek reached to close the window, he saw the bright lights of a private shuttle just beyond the gate. Who was this?

The garden gate was opening just as he reached the front door. Who would be travelling at this time of night?

“Amanda….”

She came in hurried steps and stopped just beyond the reach of his arms.

“Oh Sarek…” She made no other move but to set a suitcase on the ground, “Oh, Sarek, I’m sorry…”

“Amanda…”

“I should have been here with you. I heard from an admiral at the conference, and all I could think of was you here all alone and – “

“Please…” This was no place to be standing and speaking of such things.

“– please, Amanda. Come into the house.”

He took the suitcase and she brushed past him in the doorway. How long had it been?

He left the suitcase by the door to the front sitting room and joined her in the foyer. Her back was to him but he knew that she was wringing her hands in front of her.

“Oh, God, Sarek…oh, God…”

She didn’t know. Of course, she would only have heard the half of it. A high-ranking Star Fleet official might know of the death of one of his service’s finest scientists but he would know nothing of the ceremony at Seleya. At this moment, only a handful of people knew and most of those were Vulcan.

“Amanda…”

“Did they take him to Seleya?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. But please…”

He took her coat from her arms and gestured further into the house.

“Come in and sit down. There is more to tell.”

She looked at him oddly then started for the sitting room. When he had taken care of her coat, Sarek found her in her favourite chair, staring at the clock.

“Listen to me, Amanda,” he said gently, taking the chair he also preferred. “A remarkable sequence of events has occurred. They were able to re-fuse the spirit of our son with his body. He lives.”

She said not a word. Sarek was left in the pit of silence, sensing fluctuating emotions. “The procedure is called ‘fal-tor pan’.”

“I know what it’s called,” Her voice was sharp as she stood and walked halfway across the room. “Where is he, Sarek?”

“At the lamasery near Mount Seleya. He requires reorientation. His mind and body were separated for some time; both experienced unusual occurrences. It may be some time before he is allowed to come home.”

That last statement agitated her for a reason that Sarek could not understand. The anger that had confused him before did so again. When the silence did not abate, he spoke, 

“I have just come from there,” he said, “but there is a shuttle leaving early tomorrow. We could go together then.”

Amanda looked back at him, nodding curtly. “Why, thank you so very much, Sarek.”

He stood. That she was displeased with him for not informing her of their son’s condition immediately was evident in her posture and in the tone with which she spoke. There was nothing that would change that, and their plans concerning what to do now were made for the time being. “Would you like a drink or something to eat?”

She looked away for a moment, then back, nodding her head, “Please.”

She almost said something else, but he stopped it with a shake of his head, denying any offence. She visibly relaxed then, thanking him for the vermouth with a little smile, surprised that he had not gotten rid of it.

“How was the conference?” he asked, taking his seat once again. She sat opposite him once more and sipped her drink.

“I didn’t see much of it. I left the minute I heard about Spock.”

“That was illogical.”

“What?”

“There was nothing that you could have done for him. And I wish that you had not been told of his death at all. As things developed, you could have been spared much suffering. That was a concern.”

She softened greatly at that. He thought she might even touch him, but she did not.

“I was worried about you, too, you know.” She looked for a place to set her drink, but he had moved the side table after she had left. “You shouldn’t have had to receive news like that alone.”

“The staff were here,” he said but that was not what she meant, and she knew that he knew that that was not what she meant. Uneasy now, he asked, “Have you been well, Amanda?

“I’m doing all right, Sarek.”

“And Aaron?”

She was surprised to discover that he knew the name; her whole countenance darkened. “I don’t know if I like that, Sarek – the idea of you checking up on me like that.”

“I do not need to ‘check up’ when I can read about it on any news service.”

“I suppose not,” she sniffed, “if you read Federation Graphic…”

She was going to say more to him, her face was angry enough. But she turned sharply. “Sarek, I came to Vulcan to see my son.”

“So? Now you have conceived him in a parthenogenetic fashion…”

“Sarek…”

Her voice was weary but she stood firm and as closed as he had ever known her.

“-really, Sarek,” she said calmly, “we don’t need to do this again. We’ve had the arguments, we’ve made the decisions, we’ve gotten the divorce…”

“He is too young for you.”

“If he is too young for me, I am too young for you.”

“There is a difference…”

“Sarek…” She got to her feet, “I have had one long journey to Vulcan, and tomorrow I have another to Seleya. I thought I could stay here, but if you can’t…”

Sarek also stood, masking his embarrassment at what he had just revealed of his thoughts, “Your room is as you left it.”

For a fraction of a second, he thought she might touch him before she went, but this was now not then, and those feelings she once had for him were gone.

0O0

 

TWO

The shuttle lifted and glided over the city, then pointed its nose over the desert and shot forward. Beside him, Amanda chewed furiously on a wad of gum. Changes in air pressure could be very painful for Terrans, and this was the way she lessened it.

Sarek remembered once, when she first came to Vulcan, that the pain had been intense enough to make her cry out, and he had taken her into the washroom area of the shuttle and massaged her zygomatic arch until the pressure had equalized in her middle ears. Her body had been so vulnerable to injury, so sensitive to the touch…

“Want a piece?”

She held the package of gum out to him in a gesture of Terran friendliness.

“No,” he said. “No thank you, Amanda. Are you feeling better now?”

She nodded to him, putting the gum away. It was the first time since the night before that they had spoken to one another, “I was thinking of when I first came to Vulcan when we…”

“Yes,” he said, nodding and she knew that his thoughts had also been with that time.

She smiled at him – a true smile – and they settled back to watch the sands flow away behind them and the clouds reach down from above.

At the lamasery, the worst of the heat had already reached the plateau and Sarek quickly led Amanda inside. They stated their business to the aspirant at the gate and were taken to a place where they could rest and partake of simple refreshments. It was there that Sarek was able to relate the details of their son’s unusual experience – or at least those that he had been able to glean from his conversation with James Kirk. Amanda listened, saying very little, but it was obvious that further explanation of the process was unnecessary.

It was not very long before one of T’Lar’s own attendants joined them. Their son’s condition had not changed. Sarek sat in his chair and watched Amanda listening to the explanations that he had already heard. 

“His memories fluctuate. There are times when he knows where he is and why and when he speaks of his friends and those events of which he has been reminded. Then, just as easily, it is all forgotten. Only repeated melding instruction has helped to retain the memories which he has, and little progress has been made in recovering any further ones.”

Amanda’s hands lay in her lap, the perfect posture of Vulcan respect. That they were clenched tightly together in anger, only Sar3k realized.

When the ascended master made no more comment, Amanda got stiffly to her feet, her hands still clasped firmly together. “I will see my son now.”

The room where Spock stayed was brightly lit by a sunny window and made quite comfortable by the acolytes, but as they walked through the dark corridors, it occurred to Sarek that Amanda might find the room too Spartan to her liking.

Spock was lying on his sofa when they arrived, a volume of philosophic thought open on his knee, ignored as he stared out the window. He made no motion that indicated any awareness of their presence or that he knew that there was anyone else in the room with him.

“Spock,” the master said, “there are visitors.”

Amanda’s glare was lost on the master as he had already turned to go. As soon as the door was closed Amanda took the stool near the window.

If she had expected recognition from Spock, she was highly disappointed. When their son turned to his father, he called Sarek by name and attempted to rise.

“No, Spock. You must rest.”

Spock turned to look at Amanda again, curious, but not understanding. Amanda caught Sarek’s eye. “What have you told him about me?”

The tone was accusatory. Sarek felt the silence as a tangible object that stood between them. “I have explained to him what had happened since the death of his body and f the rejuvenation that had taken place before he was brought here. There was no time…”

“I see.”

Amanda leaned forward and took one of Spock’s hands in hers. Alarmed, their son looked to him for explanation.

“Spock…”

He turned to his mother, his head tilted slightly to one side, “You know my name?”

Amanda nodded, keeping her grasp of Spock’s hand while drawing the book from his lap and setting it out of sight. 

“… So many people know my name…”

“And you know so few of theirs?”

She nodded to his nod. “It must frighten you when people who are strangers to you seem to know so much about you when your own memories are cloudy.”

“Yes…”

In awe, Spock sat up fully, seeming to forget for a moment that this strange woman had his hand.

“…Yes, that is the problem.”

Sarek watched as Amanda turned her hand so that their son’s larger one was nonetheless nestled inside hers.

“It frightens you, this problem with your memory,” Amanda continued, Spock’s eyes never left her face even as she reached out to stroke his forehead, to smooth the hair at his temple…

“…yes…”

“Well, I’ve come now, and I will stay with you and be your friend, even if you forget my name. I won’t go away until you’re all better.”

“…all better…”

Spock’s voice became wistful and so completely revealing of his vulnerability. His eyes opened wide.

“What is it, Spock?”

“I’ll be all better. I was sick, but I’ll be…” Something came into Spock’s face just then that Sarek could not read. Somehow, it spoke much to Amanda.

“I hurt!”

“It hurts where?” Even as he spoke, Sarek heard his voice dampen and go flat. No-one was listening to him.

“I hurt!” Spock cried out again, staring for one moment at his hand locked in his mother’s and then at her face.

“Where does it hurt, Spock?” Amanda’s voice was remarkably calm. Their grown son was speaking like a child of four years of age, and she was perfectly calm and controlled. “Show me where you hurt.”

He was trying to tug his hand away.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

She is laying a trap, Sarek thought. Coaxing the emotion out of him as one would coax a small, hungry animal out of its lair with food.

“They hurt me..”

Yes. Spock twisted his arm to show the place where he had been injured by the rough handling he had received by the Klingons on the Genesis Planet. It had begun as only a tiny scratch, and the healers had kept putting bandages on it, but Spock kept pulling them off, picking at the wound until it would start to bleed again. Amanda ran her palm over the scratch and smiled at their son. Then, without any warning at all, she bent over and pressed her lips to it.

Sarek could contain himself no longer. “Amanda…”

“Be quiet!” she hissed at him, but Spock hadn’t seemed to notice. “All better now?”

Spock looked from the wound to his mother, eyes big, nodding. Then suddenly they narrowed and began to water. “They hurt me!”

His mouth fell open. He leaned forward at such an angle that Sarek feared their son would topple from the sofa. “They hurt me, Mommy. They pushed me.”

Before he could fall, Amanda shifted and brought Spock’s weight back into the sofa, enfolding their son in her arms. Tears were falling, but Sarek was unable to determine from whom.

“It was the Klingons, Amanda.” He must explain. “Spock and his shipmates were taken captive for a time. They were handled somewhat…”

“He’s not talking about the Klingons, Sarek”

Of course, he was. There was no other answer.

When he stood, no one heard him. No one heard Sarek’s hasty departure as he left them, their grown son sobbing and clinging to his Terran mother as they rocked back and forth, back and forth, back and forth…

 

THREE

Amanda did not arrive on time for their dinner, and when she finally did arrive she was quite fatigued.

Sarek signalled the attendant to bring the meal he had arranged for earlier and poured drinks for the two of them. They were seated in a courtyard reserved for visitors of those studying or taking treatment here, but as the hour was late, he and Amanda were alone. 

“Where is Spock?” Sarek asked. He had not been able to visit with his son as Amanda had been with him most of the day.

“I stayed with him until he fell asleep. Talking seems to tire him out.”

That was true. Whenever Sarek had looked in, their son had been dozing or talking with his mother. In the morning, he would quiz their son to determine the extent of his memories if the masters were not administering treatment.

“Did he still remember who you were after his naps?”

Amanda nodded to him and to the attendant as he laid out the food. The dish was one of her favorites – one she was unlikely to be served on Vega 7 where she had taken up residence. “How is it here?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t tried it yet.”

She looked up and noticed his steaming plate.

“I waited for you,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have taken so long.”

Sarek shook his head and began to eat.

They spoke of matters of little import – her collection of ridiculous hats, his penchant for exotic foods – nothing about their son or the reason that they had been apart during his ordeal. The vision of Spock so completely lost in an emotional display kept Sarek from voicing thoughts that were likely to engender a quarrel. He did not want this meal to end as so many previous conversations had.

“What do you think of it?”

Amanda put her fork down, smacking her lips

“Delicious,” she said, peeking into another covered dish. “But you make it better.”

“Why thank you, my …” Sarek swallowed first, then reached for his drink. She knew that he had almost addressed her as my wife. She said nothing, but his embarrassment at the indiscretion was quite enough.

She displayed great mercy. She did not comment upon his mistake and soon picked up the conversation and steered it toward other more pleasant and less important topics. That Amanda was not offended released him from apology, and since it would be illogical for him to dwell upon that which was not an offense, he put the matter form his mind and concentrated on his dinner.

After the meal, Amanda wanted to walk to the promontory to view Seleya by torchlight, and although he had seen a great deal of the place only too recently, he went to get his cape and met her at the portal.

The route began as a wide avenue in a broad expanse of rock that gradually diminished into a narrow footpath between jumbled boulders as it sloped ever upward. Amanda had always been more agile than he, but Sarek found his height to be the advantage here; twice he had to leg his way up an outcropping and haul her up after him.

“Just step across me, Amanda, to that boulder there…”

 

Once up, it was an easy thing for her to navigate from stone to stone until the path became clear again. Sarek picked his way carefully across and accepted a hand down on the other side of the slide. 

“Why don’t they clear out these rocks when they block the path?” Amanda asked him, straightening her coat.

“I doubt the path is used enough,” he replied. “If you wish to go back…”

“We’re almost there now,” she protested. “I understand it’s beautiful at night.”

And dangerous, he thought. The path was marked and lit by standing fixtures, but the lamps were tiny and were nonexistent where recent rockslides had covered them. Yet, Amanda strode up a sloping path ahead, apparently unimpeded. There was no moonlight on Vulcan to light the way.

As the incline grew steeper, Sarek found his breath coming harder in his chest. With only seventy percent of his heart functioning normally, he was unable to feed oxygen to all parts of his body if he exerted too much for too long. The air was thinner here in the mountains and he felt it acutely at times.

Amanda was out of sight. Regardless of Vulcan longevity, she was the one younger than her years. She had always had exceptional health. In all the years he had known her, Sarek could not remember her having an illness more serious than a ‘cold’ contracted from contact with other Earth people, and that had only been likely to happen at interstellar meetings. Among Vulcans whose common viruses were powerless against her, she had proved nothing but a source of boredom to the Federation Health Officer who examined her once a year. She’d been, as he’d said, “disgustingly healthy”. 

Except once. Producing Spock had been a long and agonizing process for her. How could he have allowed such an abomination to be perpetrated upon her body? But then, he had wanted it, and she had always done what he wanted, without complaint, even afterwards when it was found that the ugly process had rendered her incapable of having another child normally if she’d ever wanted one by an Earth man.

She was at the top when he arrived, staring out across the open darkness of the chill Vulcan night.

“Don’t stand too near the edge, Amanda,” he warned and was answered by a turn and a shaking of her head. Nonetheless, she took a step back as he himself sank to a convenient boulder and caught his breath.

It was as people said – beautiful.

From where they were, Seleya slightly below, was stretched out before them and gilded with light. The torches lit the shiny faces of the menhirs into towering flames, while below the dancing spray of the fountains climbed into fiery lace. Sarek pushed himself up and moved to Amanda’s side. They were much closer to the shrine than he had thought.

The Great Stair which had seemed endless and impossibly high from its foot was, nevertheless, more spectacular from this angle where they seemed to go – not up – but forever onward into the sky. Amanda hugged herself suddenly, shivering.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

She shook her head, face still pointed toward Seleya. “It … looks like a stairway to heaven.”

Sarek turned once more to the view, but Amanda suddenly left the precipice and retreated into the darkness behind him. After gazing at the glow of Seleya, his eyes had to readjust once more, but he located her by the sounds alone. “Amanda…”

“I wasn’t…going… to….”

He spoke no more, but guided her to a rock-dike and made her sit beside him. She buried her face in her hands weeping softly to herself. The tension in her body pained him.

“Spock is alive, Amanda,” he spoke in a whisper as if his voice could carry across the great expanse of air. “That is what is important.”

She shook her head, grinding her face into her palms. She was shaking.

“I can’t stand to see him this way… oh, Sarek…”

 

And the long separation fell away as his chest took her weight; his shoulder, her head; and he smoothed her face and hair with his hand.

The desert night had arrived in force by the time they reached the lamasery. All but the necessary lights had been squelched, and the gate leading to the road downward was closed for the night.

Sarek led Amanda through the herb garden and past the plaza and into the main building, pausing in the hallway.

“Which way?”

She guided him through the stone corridors of the lower floors and then through the open gallery where the air chilled, whistling through the columns. In the tiny elevator, she stood close and took his arm; in the hallway, she did not release it. Sarek felt himself torn between wanting her to cling to him and the fear that someone would see them on the way. 

Amanda had been given a room near the outer wall near the end of a short corridor.

“Let me.” He reached forward and opened the door for her. The room was dark. He stepped forward for a moment and brought the lights up slightly. Amanda had always paused before entering dark rooms; a childhood fear common to Earth people he knew, often never quite overcome.

Her bedroom in ShiKahr had been situated at the end of a corridor like this one, away from everyone else. She had not wanted to be alone, but it had been the way things had developed. She’d had no true friends in the household – the men did not trust her, and the women would have nothing to do with her – he had been her only friend.

But had he been so true a friend? Yes, he had taken her with him when protocol permitted, and even when it did not, but had he done enough to ease her loneliness in a world that would never seem anything but a hostile alien environment to her?

He had always known that he was her world; she had said as much. Yet it was just now that he was coming to understand what a responsibility that had been to him and how – perhaps – he could have prevented her form leaving Vulcan and leaving him. 

Could his actions have been to blame – his preoccupation with work; his monopolizing of their son’s training; his unbending insistence on Vulcan tradition, even down to the separate bedroom when he knew how much being close to him meant to her? If only he had not made her walk that long hall every time she had wanted him. That long hall, he saw now, was their relationship in its essence – she always having to move within his territory, to be where he wanted to be, to do things his way.

She hadn’t moved. Still, her left arm was linked with his, her right hand held tight on his lower arm. There was no one to see. He closed his hand over hers and was startled. “Your hands…”

He took the other one, twisting it out from the bend in his elbow, and pressed them together, “…they are as ice.”

She did not try to move away. She looked at her hands encased in his. It seemed she even leaned toward him.

“I am glad you’re here.” She looked up at his face; she almost smiled. “I’m glad I didn’t have to come here alone.”

He had known she would come to Vulcan when she had heard the news and that she would wish to come to the lamasery. What he had not known was that he would come here with her. And yet, he said, “Spock is our son, Amanda. This is where we would be.”

He thought her hands were just beginning to warm when she withdrew them. “It’s getting late, Sarek.”

He nodded as she yawned. “Perhaps I should come in and make you something to drink…”

She stepped backwards into the doorway, blocking his entry, “I’ve had two trips in as many days…”

She left the sentence dangling in the air between them. Nothing stirred. Gently, quietly, firmly, she moved back through the doorway. “I’ll see you in the morning at breakfast. Goodnight, Sarek.” 

The door closed between them. This time it was he who was left in the hallway with a walk to make past the closed and silent doors.

FOUR

Sarek did not see Amanda the next morning. She had risen early and was with Spock in the solarium overlooking the vegetable gardens. Sarek thought to join them - but was prevented.

“It is too much stimulation for him, more than one visitor at a time,” he was told by one of the Masters.

Sarek agreed. Amanda’s presence, especially, would be much for Spock. He wished that she would not encourage their son’s emotions so when she spoke to him, but that was the way that she had always been, and there was no helping it. He had had to school Spock repeatedly in the ways to resist this, but even as a young boy he had not been in the weakened mental condition in which he found himself now. Still, Sarek decided, he would leave them alone a little longer. He did not wish another quarrel such as the one that had occurred the morning Amanda had left his house and his world.

 

The library was cool on the lower levels, near stifling on the upper as the day wore on. Sarek had spent most of the time in this room while he had waited for the Enterprise to arrive those – what?

He remembered hurriedly poring over the old texts for the long-forgotten ritual of the re-fusion when he had been given the startling news from the Klingon space ship bringing his son home. Now, with ‘time on his hands’, as the Earth people said, he browsed at his leisure, gathering the usual, more elementary volumes into a stack on a small table and cursing the stiffness in his limbs when he had finished with the lower shelves. The lamasery was an ancient one, and the ancient way of recording the written word was quite good enough for them. 

When finally he left the library, he had the good fortune to meet Amanda striding along the hallway and discovered to his surprise how late it had grown. She seemed surprised to meet him as well, but fell in step beside him in their old way.

“Have you just come from Spock now?”

She nodded, keeping up a pace that even his long legs made with effort. They were moving in the direction of Spock’s room, so he kept the pace.

“I had better go now, then, and visit with him before he tires.”

“Oh, Sarek,” she said, stopping him in the corridor, “he was sleeping when I left. He’s so weak…”

Her voice faded away. He thought she seemed to retreat as well. Sarek waited until a few moments had passed before he replied, “And you are fatigued, Amanda. You could not have had much sleep last night, you arose so early. I believe that an interval of rest would be beneficial to you just now.”

She had never truly become accustomed to the climate; she had stayed indoors most times during the day, easily becoming exhausted when she id not. IN the evenings they had walked together through the park when the air was cooler, talking, sometimes stopping to listen to music from the amphitheatre. Once for no logical reason that she could state later, she had kicked off her shoes and thrown off her cape and bolted into the dusk, hiding behind trees and sculptures until he had cornered her near the fountain, behaving as if her mind had been taken over by some evil spirit. 

And while he had been mortified, no one else had seen her behavior, and he had been strangely vitalized by it. He remembered with a start, that he had followed her to her bedroom that night and stayed long enough that there were looks of suspicion when he emerged from that hallway in the morning.

She had noticed the books in his arms. “Are those for Spock?”

“I had thought to bring them to him when next I visited.” 

She nodded, “Oh.”

But he was not watching her. He was sensing what she had been, knowing that a different person stood there from the one that had left all those months ago, someone not unlike the young wife galloping through the Vulcan twilight like a woman possessed.

Perhaps, he thought now, the shadow that possessed her had been herself.

“I think you’re right Sarek.”

“What?”

“I think I need a nap.”

“I will accompany you,” he said too quickly to see the mistake in his choice of words.

“Sarek…”

“I will escort you,” he restated. “The halls are complicated and confusing.”

“It’s all right,” she said, “I can find my way.”

“Of course.”

She started away in the awkward silence, then turned back toward him, “Except the dining room. I can never find the dining room from my quarters without getting lost one or two times.”

He nodded, “Then I will come for you…”

“In two hours…?”

“As you wish, Amanda.”

When she had gone, he stood alone in the hallway, listening, before finally leaving the philosophy books for Spock with one of the learned masters. 

Her nap did her no good for Amanda yawned throughout their meal and watched him with bleary eyes. Finally, her pastry uneaten, she excused herself to retire. Once he’d seen her to her quarters, Sarek went out into the night air.

Crossing the plaza, he stopped in the herb garden and breathed in the scent of growing things and moving air. In the heat of the day, there were no smells but that of ground water in the sun – a metallic taste in the mouth when one was thirsty and the water situated beyond reach - and the stagnant, breezeless air.

It had been the first – no, the second – year of their marriage that Amanda had determined to start a garden. She had planted and weeded and fertilized until she’d had to be kept in out of the sun. But the seeds had not taken. Later, he had discovered that she’d used the seeds of Terran plants, not Vulcan. When he’d pointed out the illogical and impractical nature of her attempt, she went away to her bedroom and cried without stopping for several hours. Nothing he said made her stop until she fell asleep exhausted. 

Shortly after he learned that the last implant had taken root and that she was expected to carry the fetus to term. She had reported at the proper time and the implant had produced their son.

The process had become such an exercise in futility that he had ceased to concern himself with it. He had been gone away on business to the other side of the world when the child had been conceived.

FIVE

In the morning, there was a message from Kirk. There were difficulties with passage at Starbase 6 that required his attention. The communications facilities at the lamasery were rudimentary at best, and he had to leave for Space Central.

Before he left, Sarek spoke briefly with Spock, explaining why he had to leave and assuring his son that he would return soon. Spock was as uncommunicative as he had been since the fal-tor-pan, lying silently on the sofa near his window and breathing in short, little sighs. The daily improvement noted by the masters seemed far away when those frequent spells of obtuseness were upon him. 

The difficulty with the Klingon vessel piloted by Kirk and his crew took longer than he expected, and Sarek had to negotiate long-distance with the Governor of the Federation over matters that simple common sense should have made clear. Every day he called Amanda for news of their son, and every day he was about the same. From the tone of her voice, he knew that Amanda was unconcerned, and Sarek took that to mean that he had no reason to be either. Tight, tentative tones would have told him to hurry back to Seleya no matter what words she spoke.

Four days later, Sarek arrived back at the lamasery in the dark hours of the morning and went straight to bed. When he awoke, the sun was high and there were voices in the hall. By the time he had dressed, the voices had ceased and he found no one outside his door

When he requested an update on his son, T’Lar herself was able to speak with him and, to his surprise, she and her close council of ascended masters were of the opinion that Spock had much improved and was thought able to go home soon. Retraining would have to continue, of course, but would be of the standard instruction given to young people. Time, he was told, would do the rest.

He left T’Lar and went immediately to share this knowledge with Amanda, but she was not in her room. Neither could she be found in the dining room. Sarek went quickly then to the quarters that Spock occupied and knocked lightly on the door. Perhaps Amanda had already been told the positive results of Spock’s last evaluation. She would be waiting now to tell him as he was her.

“Amanda?”

The door echoed hollowly under his knuckles.

“Spock? It is your father.”

Silence. Sarek reached for the doorknob and turned it. “Spock?”

There was no one in the room. The blanket that had been spread over Spock’s knees when he rested on the sofa was folded neatly over the arm. The robe that he had worn ever since Seleya was carelessly heaped at the foot of the bed, and a pair of hiking boots, one in front of the other, stood along near the chair. The rest of the room was bare as it had always been. There was no sign whatever of the texts on basic philosophy that the masters assured Sarek had been delivered the night before he’d left for Space Central.

Finally he discovered them sitting on the stone barrier of the outermost walkway. Amanda sat sideways, one foot braced on top of the wall: Spock straddled the barrier, his far leg dangling into the hot air rising in the canyon. What was she thinking to allow their son so close to the edge with his mind unsteady and the desert floor beyond the walkway half-a-Terran mile below?

Sarek started toward them, taking the stairs to the level below. The walkways were ancient, following the original levels of the rock from which they were carved. There was no direct route to anywhere in the lamasery; it was said that the convoluted pathways with their changing levels had been protection against raids in the ancient times and assurance that the novices would have plenty of time of contemplation as they navigated the many loops of walkways as they went about their daily tasks.

Following the path was relatively straight forward in spite of several cross-paths that cut in at irregular intervals. Sarek found himself climbing and descending slight inclines and pairs of steps and, at one spot, the walk dipped down and split in two. As he was at a level too low to see, Sarek made a guess and took the branch he believed led outward and was rewarded when he heard Amanda’s voice ahead and above him. 

The first inner loop was several feet lower than the outer path, and as he appeared, he heard his son’s voice, “This does not matter to me.”

“He’s your father, Spock.”

Sarek halted on the path and with it the passing of air through his lungs. 

“I have pain from him. I hurt so many times, Mother. There is no solace from him. As these things come back into my thoughts, I find that I hate him.”

Amanda spoke, “Some people do all the wrong things for all the right reasons. You’re here now because your father travelled halfway across the Galaxy to bring you back.”

There was a sound then – a contemptuous sound.

“He is a powerful man, you have told me. He would have others see the proof of that. And was it not easy for him? It was his arrogance that brought him to find me, Mother – not any kindness for me.”

Sarek went away quickly the way he had come and without a sound. He would not have them know that he had overheard their conversation, but he would not allow his son to be turned against him.

And in the morning, he discovered that Amanda and Spock had left Seleya without him.

 

SIX

The next earliest shuttle was due to leave before the connecting transport was scheduled to go for supplies, but Sarek was able to negotiate a ride with the driver taking the aspirants to Seleya.

He rode in the compartment with them and could not avoid their eyes. They knew so little of the world beyond the lamasery, and yet the mysteries of life and death were things with which they were vastly intimate.

Making the connection, Sarek was able to get back to ShiKahr and to the house before Spock and Amanda could leave there. How he had known that this was what Amanda was planning with such scant evidence was in the echoes of old patterns and intimacies.

Sarek was standing next to the trunk when Spock brought suitcases. Amanda looked back and forth between Sarek and the baggage.

“Spock is taking some of his things with him. They’re just some old toys, Sarek. If you must see…”

When she folded her arms across her chest, her jacket rode up. Why had he never noticed how attractive she was in Earth clothes?

“Open it up, Spock,” she said, “and let him see.”

He was uninterested in anything she might be able to fit into her luggage.

“Where are you going?” He demanded.

“I’m taking Spock home with me, Sarek.”

“You cannot take him away from Vulcan in his condition. He needs…”

“Spock?” Amanda turned to their son, smiling. “Would you take the luggage outside and wait for the car?”

Spock hesitated for a moment, then shouldered the trunk and left. When had he regained his strength? 

Sarek could see the lines form at the corner of her eye and the muscles rise in her cheek. She had planned this while at the lamasery, he realised. She had timed it perfectly. If the aspirants had not required to go to Seleya ….

“Please Sarek,” Amanda was saying, “don’t make a scene.”

“I make a scene?” The idea was preposterous. 

“Spock wasn’t here the last time. Please…it wouldn’t be good for him right now.”

“You take our son from the lamasery when his mind is weakened and disoriented, and you speak o f what is ‘good’ for him? You endanger his life, and you make a noise of concern to me?”

“The masters said that Spock was well enough to leave…”

“To go home. Here. To Shi-Kahr.” That was what they had meant. “Spock will remain here.”

He turned to leave. She would not disobey him. He had spoken on the matter. There would be no further discussion.

“Why?”

He hesitated. That was his undoing. He had never hesitated before. He had always made his pronouncements and left to signal the end of the audience.

He did not repeat himself. He did not explain.

“Why, Sarek?”

It was not really a question. She did not expect an answer. He hesitated, and she carried on, “So that you and the learned masters can pry open his brain with mind melds and pour Vulcan doctrine back into it in one piece, all nice and neat? No…”

Her eyes were focused directly in the center of the back of his head. He could feel it as if she had pressed two hard, warm fingers into his scalp and then drawn them back. 

“No… not this time.”

“He is a Vulcan.”

“He is not.”

He turned. First he hesitated. Now, he turned to look back. He could not remember when she had raised her voice to such a volume and yet been completely in control of her emotions. Yes, he could. It had been the day she had left his house.

“You drove every part of me out of him, Sarek,” she said. “Day by day, year by year, you beat him over the head with Vulcan thought, Vulcan opinions, Vulcan prejudices until the thought of his Earth blood meant nothing to him but shame.”

She took a deep breath, “But you failed didn’t you, Sarek? You didn’t drive the humanity out of him, did you?”

Her eyes left his only for a moment, and then they were back. “No, you drove it in deeper, into a place he couldn’t reach, and stranded it there.”

“And now?” He faced her squarely. He folded his hands before him. “You will make a Terran of him?”

“I will rescue that part of him that you abandoned. And I will give him a choice.”

She walked forward to retrieve her bag, her voice carefully controlled. “Sarek… don’t make me say something to hurt you.”

He blocked her path “Should that concern you now?”

“Stop!” 

Their son stood in the doorway. Amanda started toward him but he raised his hand. 

“Why is there an argument? The decision is made.”

Yes, a decision made in the middle of the night by a woman who would take him away when he needed his own people to care for him. 

Sarek stepped away from where the remaining bags waited on the floor, blocking Amanda’s view of their son.

“You will not go with your mother, Spock. It is dangerous for you away from Vulcan and from the care of the masters.”

“Why?”

Now from him, a question that was no question. 

“What can the masters do for me that they have not already done?”

“They can help to bring back the fullness of your memories, to help untangle them. To bring back your life to you as it was.”

“Should I want this?”

Again, not really a question.

“Do you recall what my life was before? Do you truly?”

And he had no answer.

“Well, I do.”

At that, Spock came fully into the room, striding around Sarek to pick up the last of the bags. He carried them to Amanda’s side and waited.

“Is this what she told you?” he asked his son.

It was Amanda this time who held up her hand to Spock.

“This is the reason we left the lamasery without telling you.”

“So that you could sneak away in the dawn like a thief?”

“So that we could spare you.”

He did not believe this, and she knew that he did not believe this.

“Sarek what would you have said if I’d told you that I had asked Spock to decide where he would go, how he would live…”

“That is illogical.”

“ .. that the decision was up to him,” she went on, “to alter at any time? That if he chose to stay here on Vulcan with you, my home would always be open to him?”

That this was happening, that these words were being spoken in his house was remarkable.

He addressed Amanda.

“Spock is incapable of making such a decision in his present condition He does not know what he needs or wants. He…”

“I will wait for you in the car, Mother.”

And their son left not pausing at the door, not looking back.

Amanda did not move. She stood in the middle of the room looking at the wall, the floor, the draperies…

“You have done well, Amanda. You have done very well to take my son from me.”

She turned to him to speak, but her eyes did not bite or burn or accuse; they pooled and gazed as if in fatigue or…sadness?

“I didn’t take him away from you, Sarek,” she told him in a voice softer than the air itself. “You lost him. Just now. The same way you lost him before.”

 

He did not watch them go. He did not wait until they departed. He went alone to his bedroom far from the sounds of the outside, where he could hear nothing of their leaving.

He knew that when they had gone, he would call back the household staff from mourning – those who cooked and cleaned and waited and hung on his every word, recording all for posterity so that future generations would listen in awe to his views and opinions, his interpretations of important events.

What future generations? The only link to that was leaving this place, turning his back, shaking his head. Perhaps he’d been wrong to ostracize Saavik – perhaps accepting her would have made them a family again. Perhaps Spock would have married after all and produced blood heirs as well if there had been a home for them. Perhaps Saavik cold have been a daughter to his spirit if not of his body…

He could not stay here. He went to the window at the end of the hall, the one near the room where Amanda had slept and lived and wept in what seemed so long ago. The car that had come to take her and their son was still parked in the drive below, and the driver was loading the last o f the luggage into the storage compartment.

Sarek watched through the window, its divided panes breaking Spock in two as he stood near the passenger door. Sarek watched him offer his hand to his mother before climbing in himself and closing the door behind him. It was not the automatic motion of a wandering mind but the courteous gesture of one that knew itself. He had not seen the change before now.

Sarek pushed on the window latch but it would not budge. It had been toolong unopened and the lock had frozen shut.

The car lifted and started forward; he was standing now at the very spot where Amanda had stood when he’d gone away those many times, blowing a kiss from here where no one cold see, where no one could suspect…

The car was hidden from his view by bushes as it made the turn, but as it was came by, Sarek noted that the window in the back on the driver’s side had been slid aside and, from the opening, he saw Amanda – saw her lean out and lookup at him standing there in the window, saw her lift a hand in farewell, saw it go to her lips.

Her hand remained there until the car maneuvered out of sight – no kiss blown up to him, but one, perhaps, still left deep inside somewhere.

Perhaps she would reconsider, call him from Space Central and request an opportunity for further discussion. He would agree to that. He would listen. He would take her recommendations under advisement. He would negotiate.

The wind blew up and tossed a spray of sand against the window, adding to the fine scoring of many years on the outer surface of the heavy, old glass.

Sarek turned and went to the door of Amanda’s bedroom. There was no need to knock. The bed was made and smoothed as if it had not been slept in. The draperies were drawn.

Perhaps there was something left behind that would require her return, if only briefly. Here – the watch he had given her!

She had left it on the edge of the nightstand, forgotten it while dressing that first morning before they had gone to Seleya. She would want this. It was a finely made T’Pregis timepiece, much valued. She would be back for it.

She would call first to ask his permission. He would grant it.

He sat in the chair near her dresser. She would be at the pad by now. She would be checking the departure schedule and looking at her watch to discern how much time she had before boarding. And she would find the watch missing.

It was early. He would wait.

 

The End.


End file.
